Tiferet Tea Room @ Katong V

You know you’ve hit jackpot when you find one good café after another – sans the weekend crowd (referring to Carry On Café here). After spending 5 days a week at Raffles Place, I definitely need a cosy space (that is not my house) where I can talk about life with friends and not be pressured by the snaking queue outside that is waiting for me to vacate. Tiferet Tea Room is a new café at Katong V, next to the constantly-packed Tomi Sushi. A large part of the café is hidden from shoppers, which meant that you’d miss it with just a glance.
A rack of carefully curated magazines – not from your usual SPH publishers. These magazines kept us busy!Tiferet Tea Room specialises in tea, if you haven’t caught that yet. Its main menu contains a myriad of tea selections from different parts of China. To me, the entire concept is a modern take of Chinese Teahouse, which we have seen a decline these days.
Water boiled to different temperatures to go with different types of tea leaves! You definitely need some knowledge in this. Personally, these are the details which customers would appreciate.
Tea Appreciation Course, anyone?
If the tea you’ve tried caught your fancy, you can bring them back home to savour too! They come in really pretty, classy packagings I would say.
Japanese tea wares.
More teapots and teacups!Dimsum Set [Har Kao, Siew Mai, Beancurd Prawn Dumpling & Mini Lotus Glutinous Rice] ($8) – Great bites to go with tea! This set is extremely value for money and can be easily shared between 2 people. My favourite was the lotus glutinous rice which had a nice chewy texture and very fragrant. The rest fared decently too! Apart from dimsum, the café serves sandwiches and quiches for more substantial meals.Chocolate Cake ($5) – Though not the best chocolate cake around, it did try to be a little different with chocolate wafer balls buried in the cream. The wafer balls provided a crunchy texture. However, the chocolate sponge and cream could be denser, richer and more chocolatey.Peony Bud (Small Pot, $8) – They say Chinese tea is the best way to wash down a heavy meal and I can’t agree more! Peony Bud is a type of green tea that is scented by flower petals, hence it tasted light and refreshing, very unlike its bitter counterparts like Oolong and Pu’er. Moreover, the wares that the tea came in was so lovely to look at. I was sold.

I feel a strong affinity with Tiferet Tea Room. It may not be the fanciest of cafés, yet the effort in educating customers on tea and re-introducing Chinese tea with a modern context really appealed to me. If people are willing to pay $21 for a pot of TWG, I don’t see a reason why this café is not garnering a long queue already.